Flexicurity: Is Employment Security Attainable Under Flexible Employment?

Indices of flexible and of precarious work derived from the Fourth European Survey of Working Conditions 2005 are used to reveal the dependence between flexibility and precariousness of work with statistical certainty. It is also shown that employment flexibility has the strongest negative effect on employability. It implies that flexicurity labour market policy (= flexibilization of employment relations compensated by improvements in employment security and social security) as it is suggested by the European Commission cannot be consistently implemented. Therefore, an alternative implementation of flexicurity is proposed in the form of flexinsurance which assumes that the employer’s contribution to social security should be proportional to the flexibility (precariousness) of the employment contract.